Legal Grounds | Ben Morton on Developing the Currency of Leadership, Safety as a Foundation for Growth, & Embracing the Paradox of Planning

In its literal sense, the term ‘Servant Leadership’ is a bit of an oxymoron. 

If you’re the one in charge, shouldn’t you be overseeing whatever ‘service’ is being done by your team? 

But in the same way that Leadership is confused with the idea of Management, the word Servant in the term ‘Servant Leadership’ often gets mistaken for the idea of Subordinance. 

 

But as my guest today discusses, Servant Leadership is about more than being willing to jump in and help your team complete a mission when a situation goes sideways, it's about making sure they know you’re doing everything you can to keep them out of that situation in the first place.

Joining the podcast this week is Ben Morton, a sought-after leadership mentor, coach and bestselling author. 

A graduate of the Royal Military Academy Sandurst, he served two tours in Iraq before going on to assume the Global Head of HR role at World Challenge, eventually joining the ranks at Tesco, helping to develop their Leadership Academy.

But after moving from the battlefield to the boardroom, Ben began to notice how many programs relied on ‘tools’ and models’ that turned leadership into a numbers-game. 

Determined to make a change, in 2011 he founded Ben Morton Leadership under a singular principle: A leader exists to support, develop, and look after the people they have the privilege and responsibility to lead so that they can deliver the results for which the leader is accountable.

We discuss why providing a sense of safety is at the core of leadership, why telling and teaching are two separate things, and why not all leadership lessons translate from the battlefield to the boardroom. 

Enjoy the show.